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I tried both peanut oil and sunflower oil on the same food cooked in the same pan and noticed that when cooked with sunflower oil, the food tends to stick to the pan. If I use peanut oil, I have less of a problem.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why both oils react differently even though they are used for cooking food? Both of them have the same smoke point.

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Are you sure you had all the other variables unchanged? I have never heard of or observed such a difference. – rumtscho♦ Dec 2 '11 at 11:58
I assume you're doing this with refined sunflower oil? Also, you may want to try Canola (rapeseed) oil for a different healthy oil – derobert Dec 2 '11 at 13:28
Please avoid making health claims in your questions in the future, especially when the information does not directly pertain to the question. – Aaronut♦ Dec 5 '11 at 0:07
Comments are not the place to debate health issues. Feel free to take it to Seasoned Advice Chat or ask/answer questions about nutrition on Physical Fitness. This is a site for culinary topics. – Aaronut♦ Dec 5 '11 at 17:54

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I feel the same as you Anderson. I found that too and you just made me to do some research, which I found they have different smoke points.

Unrefined sunflower oil 225°F 107°C Unrefined peanut oil 320°F 160°C

see the link: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/50/Smoke-Points-of-Various-Fats

Also, one of the reasons food stick to the pan is the evenness of the temperature of the pan. If you use a thicker pan or copper pan, the heat will be distributed on the pan more evenly and food will stick less. The higher smoke point of oil makes me to believe the oil helps to distribute heat more evenly.

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Same link as the OP included, and given that he said the two had the same smoke point, I'm guessing he's not using unrefined oils. Peanut and sunflower oil are both listed as 440°F/227°C, and refined varieties at 450°F/232°C. – Jefromi♦ Dec 4 '11 at 8:00
Thanks Jefromi. I jumped to the conclusion too quickly. Need an expert to answer this. – Foodrules Dec 4 '11 at 9:40
I've never heard of anybody frying with unrefined oils - but certainly if one were using unrefined sunflower oil it would smoke and stick like crazy. Refined peanut oil and sunflower have approximately the same smoke point (450° F). – Aaronut♦ Dec 5 '11 at 0:08
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For an excellent overview of how various oils can affect your cooking, I recommend the Good Eats episode: There Will be Oil. During this episode Alton Brown will explain what oils are best suited for what cooking tasks. Showing everything from extraction techniques to refining process you will see how the choice of oil can affect your food.

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...does he say anything that addresses this particular question? – Jefromi♦ Dec 4 '11 at 7:52
He talks about the differences that various oils bring to the kitchen and some of the properties that can affect the choices 'for' various oils. He does not contrast 'peanut vs. sunflower'. So, if you are capable of interpreting information then, yes. If you have to have it spelled out for you, then no. – Cos Callis Dec 4 '11 at 20:01
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The link is a good link. However, the primary purpose of this site is precisely to spell it out for people, which I believe is what @Jefromi was getting at. I'm not sure if the premise of this question is even correct - I can't imagine the choice of peanut vs. sunflower oil having anything to do with sticking and it certainly doesn't mirror my experience - but if you believe that claim to have merit, it would be excellent if you could point us to the most relevant parts of this episode that might explain it (or better yet summarize them). – Aaronut♦ Dec 5 '11 at 0:11

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